


Another Dance in the Dark

by flyy0ufools



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider, Unofficial Sequel, because I didn't write the first fic, fic based on a fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-16 18:14:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18696718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyy0ufools/pseuds/flyy0ufools
Summary: Sam's back from hell, Dean's back in the game, but that doesn't mean they get to just pick up where they left off.(A continuation ofFumbling in the Dark: Love Advice for the Romantically Impairedby leonidaslion, starting at 6x01.)





	1. Presence (Exile on Main St.)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fumbling in the Dark: Love Advice For the Romantically Impaired](https://archiveofourown.org/works/181789) by [leonidaslion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion). 



> I love Fumbling in the Dark so much but it stops in season 5 and I've always wondered how the story would continue after that. This is my attempt to sate my (and anyone else's) curiosity.
> 
> Tags and rating will be updated as needed.

Ben can still remember every single detail of his first meeting with Dean and Sam. It was his eighth birthday, and the only thing on his mind had been store-bought vanilla cake and a bouncy house full of giggling girls.

He can admit that he’d developed something of a hero worship thing with Dean that week, but can he really be blamed? Even now, Dean is all the things eleven-year-old boys dream about growing up to one day be or have or do: living fast and free, going wherever he wants and driving an awesome car to get there, wearing leather jackets like they’re second skin, carrying guns and knives and walking down the street like he’s not afraid of anything, because _he’s_ the monster under the monsters’ beds.

And maybe Ben had expected for some of that shine to wear off over the last year of living with the legend, but he _still_ views Dean as so much more than just the average guy. He’s not Superman, of course, but he’s definitely larger than life.

And then Sam walks into their kitchen, and _larger than life_ takes on a whole new meaning. It isn’t just Sam’s physical stature that has Ben stopping dead in his tracks, words dying on his lips and leaving him staring, stupid and speechless and eyes wide as he tilts his head back farther and farther. No, it’s not just Sam’s imposing height; it’s his entire presence. It’s like staring at an infinite wall built of frozen diamonds: extraordinary and objectively beautiful, but cold and sharp deadly. Ben finds himself stumbling back a few steps so that he doesn’t accidentally cut himself.

He’s sent upstairs to pack, and he takes ten whole seconds to stuff a few t-shirts and some socks haphazardly into his duffel bag before creeping back out of his bedroom and down the hall to the top of the stairs to spy on the adults.

They’re still in the kitchen, voices low enough that Ben can’t make out what they’re saying. But he can see them, his mom standing on one side of the island while Dean and his brother are on the other. They’re standing…weirdly close. It’s only particularly noticeable because, over the past year, Dean has spurned even the most basic physical affection most of the time. Sure, occasionally Ben got a congratulatory high-five or one-armed hug after his baseball team won a game. And he has definitely seen Dean wrap an arm around Lisa and kiss her cheek while manning the grill at a neighborhood barbeque. But those moments were few and far between, and they never lasted more than a couple of seconds.

So yes, Ben notices the distance—or lack thereof—between the two brothers. Plus, Dean keeps reaching across that minuscule space to touch Sam’s elbow, his wrist, his lower back or hip or neck. It’s like his hand has a mind of its own, because he doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s doing it. He also seems utterly unaware of Lisa’s constant flickering glances over to Dean’s hand wherever it touches Sam’s body.

And though Sam isn’t touching Dean back—both hands instead resting steadily on the countertop—he doesn’t once twitch or flinch at the touches, like they’re causing neither discomfort nor annoyance. Like…like they’re something that he’s used to, even after over a year of not receiving them.

It’s then that Ben begins to wonder if he and his mom weren’t always just a temporary stand-in for Dean’s little brother. Ben wonders, now that Sam is back, how long before Dean leaves for good? Because it’s obvious right then that Sam has always been, and will always be, the only family Dean wants or needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find it on tumblr [here](https://one-soul-two-brothers.tumblr.com/post/184626541891/1-presence-exile-on-main-st).


	2. Anchor (Two and a Half Men)

Samuel doesn’t notice the change in his younger grandson until the second hunt that his older, supposedly-retired grandson shows up to. Whatever Sam’s… _issues_ are, he’s always been a fairly easy hunter to work with. He can be counted on to the get the job done quickly and efficiently, and the way he works with others is something Samuel rarely sees. Sam always carries himself in a way that makes others _ask_ him to do something instead of _ordering_ him to do it, yet he never butts heads in that stereotypical alpha, needs-to-be-in-charge way.

But when Dean shows up, Samuel watches as Sam does the unthinkable—he defers to his older brother in a way that he never did to any of the Campbell group, not even Samuel himself.

And it’s not that Sam’s razor-sharp edges have magically softened. It’s not that he smiles more and laughs more. It’s nothing so obvious. No, it’s almost as though his internal compass stopped spinning wildly and finally found its true north. Now every time Sam moves, he turns his weakest spot towards his brother, like he knows it’ll be protected. Like Dean is the first and last (the only) person Sam looks to for a second opinion. Like Sam is no longer a buoy bobbing aimlessly in the waves, because he found his anchor: Dean.

Samuel can recognize this shift, because it’s the exact same one he felt in himself when he met his Deanna nearly sixty years before.

Samuel knows what it means, he just isn’t sure what to make of it when it’s happening between his two grandsons.

So when Dean leaves for the second time in two weeks, back to the girl and the kid, Samuel can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Because as scary as an un-anchored Sam Winchester may seem, a Sam Winchester who has only one care, one priority, one _loyalty_ is a hundred times more frightening when that loyalty is no longer you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find it on tumblr [here](https://one-soul-two-brothers.tumblr.com/post/184638250106/2-anchor-two-and-a-half-men).


	3. Will (The Third Man)

Castiel knows he can’t avoid them any longer, so finally he comes. He may have the willpower to resist twelve months of Sam’s angry and confused prayers to him, but only because he knows that somehow, in some way, he messed something up when he retrieved Sam from the cage. It was obvious the moment a newly-resurrected Sam stood outside Dean’s residence, and instead of walking up the steps and knocking on the door and soothing Deans wounds, he walked away.

Castiel knew even then, but he pushed it deeper and ignored it.

He has the willpower to not contact Dean for a whole year, neither to ask for help when he was floundering in heaven’s civil war nor to provide help whenever he heard Dean screaming in desperation through his nightmares.

No matter how strong the angel’s desire was to snap his fingers and reunite the two brothers once again, he resisted.

He had that willpower for one whole year, but now Sam and Dean have found their way back to each other without his help, and he has never been able to withstand the full force of their combined wills. It’s easier to believe that he is just a weak angel than to acknowledge that the Winchesters together are just that strong of a force.

So this time when Dean prays, Castiel appears, and for a moment he thinks—nay, hopes—that whatever has been wrong with Sam is something that a year back on Earth and being reunited with the other half of his soul has fixed.

But after—after Balthazar destroys Rafael’s vessel and Castiel has a few moments to metaphorically catch his breath for the first time in a year, he returns to the brothers and watched, veiled by his powers. He watches as Dean questions Sam, confusion and fear roughening his voice and giving it that hard yet pleading edge that Castiel knows Sam could never say no to, could never lie to. He watches as Dean speak of the torture-like process Castiel used on the young boy to “read” his soul. (It had been necessary, the only way to know for certain who had claimed the boy’s soul, and while Castiel still believes that he’s done nothing wrong, he is not so insensitive as to not understand why such a thing upsets Dean.)

He watches, and he waits for Sam’s explanation, because a part of him needs to hear it almost as much as Dean does. And when the lie pours out of Sam’s mouth smooth as melted butter, Castiel frowns in disappointment.

Something is most definitely wrong with Sam, still, and Castiel is not the only one who knows it. Dean hears the lie as well, and Castiel knows that he now has two problems to solve, because as destructive as an angelic civil war could be, he fears even more what may happen to the world if Dean Winchester loses his brother for the second time in one year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find it on tumblr _[here](https://one-soul-two-brothers.tumblr.com/post/184697497581/3-will-the-third-man)_.


End file.
